The Modern Skeleton

As kings of old in riotous royal feasts,
Among the piled up roses and the wine,
Wild music and soft-footed dancing girls,
The pearls and gold and barbarous luxury,
Used to show also a white skeleton,—
To make life meeker in the sight of death,
To make joy sweeter by the thought thereof,—

So our new kings in their high banqueting,
With the electric lustre unforeseen,
And unimagined costliness of flowers;
Rich wines of price and food as rare as gems,
And all the wondrous waste of artifice;
Midst high-bred elegance and jewelled ease
And beauty of rich raiment; they should set,
High before all, a sickly pauper child,
To keep the rich in mind of poverty,—
The sure concomitant of their estate.